Polio eradication geographical modelling

There Dr. Gammino describes the hurdles faced by healthcare workers in countries where census data is often missing, where political, seasonal and geographical variations are making these more difficult. The description of the different social structures in urban or rural areas was also interesting. But the post also highlights how “social mapping” and geographic information systems (GIS) are helping understanding where the population resides and helping reaching them (here for polio vaccination but this could be for other purposes: maternity care, child care, etc.).

Now it would be interesting to see the two worlds collide: having these geotagged information feed a prediction model and reverting back predictions to healthcare workers in the field to inform them of potential areas to visit. This would have some implications for logistics and these efforts should also address privacy questions. But it would potentially help eradicating polio too.